8 years ago

Teaching Gmail to Others: A Slow and Stubborn Process

by Rawan / Her

I refuse to believe that you “can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” It just completely goes against the Peace Corps philosophy of Human Capacity. We build people up, not buildings. Yesterday, my goal was to teach Gmail and Google Drive to our community workers. I wanted to increase their technological skills so that they could collaborate with each other in a more efficient and secure way. (Read my previous blog post for more details).

PeaceCorps.Gov — Peace Corps Definition of Development from peacecorps.gov

Before I started my PowerPoint presentation, I saw some blank, unhappy looks. One with a slight annoyed tone of voice protested, “არ ინტერნეტი მაქვს (ar interneti makvs).”

I don't have a Smart phone. I don't have internet. — I don’t have a Smart phone. I don’t have internet.

Perfect comeback in hand I said, “According to the needs assessment we conducted with all of you, I am aware you have internet once a week.” Bam! She continued glaring me down, “Tea told me that you are able to access internet at a cafe, or school, or someone’s else’s home since you access your Facebook at least once a week.” Double Bam. Of course, I said this with a smile on my face and I was very friendly and diplomatic.

I'm aware you don't have Internet, but I know you can access it :) — I’m aware you don’t have Internet, but I know you can access it 🙂

To avoid further discouragement, I had my coworker hand them printed versions of my PowerPoint presentation. I explained that when they log-on to the internet, having the instructions with screenshots will enable them. This way they feel more confident to start using Gmail on their own. Providing this explanation helped ease them up a bit.

I started the training with why Gmail is better than Facebook. I knew that I needed to get their buy-in and many Georgians (especially in the villages) are convinced that Facebook is the ultimate end all-be all. Explaining that World Vision has child protection policies and how Google can increase their privacy got several nods of approval.

However, the second I started with the technical portion of the presentation, I saw overwhelmed expressions. Some of the community workers looked as if I was teaching them Chinese.

I tried to increase participation and involvement by having them come to the laptop and send a test e-mail. I tried asking questions to see if they understood the material we just reviewed. The “asking questions” method completely backfired. My colleague simply answered my questions for them in Georgian. He did not allow them to ask and fail. Therefore, I can’t tell how much they actually grasped the new information. Allowing an individual to answer a question wrong and have them correct themselves is such an American concept. Georgians answer questions for each other. They truly believe that they are helping their friend and saving face.

The second part of the presentation focused on Google Drive. To my surprise, they loved the idea. None of them have heard of it before, but they were interested in knowing more. The idea that you don’t have to carry a flash drive was liberating. The idea that you can access your documents anywhere with internet was freeing. The fact you can save attachments directly from your e-mail to the drive was mind-blowing.

Google Drive Happy — Google Drive sounds amazing!

But they did truly learn how to use it? Nope. Can they go home and replicate the tricks at home? Another no. We ended my presentation with my boss telling me that this simply serves as an introduction. We will most likely do one on one meetings with each community worker on how use to Gmail. Even something as “simple” as teaching someone how to use e-mail takes time.

Some of us newbie volunteers don’t realize how slow development can be. Some people back home think that Peace Corps Volunteers create so much change and increase human development ten-fold. The truth is that human development can be painfully slow. It is not like America is much faster than the developing world. In the United States, it took about a hundred years from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Act. Therefore, to enact a change in a country that is as old is time might take longer. The United States was born as country by being rebellious against the British. Georgians, however, only survived as a country because they were stubborn (and rightly so) to keep their language and culture when the Russians occupied them.

Therefore, when you mix a culture of holding onto traditions with a world that is vastly changing, you get interesting results. Having worked in Silicon Valley, each calendar year is equivalent to dog years. Things change so FAST in the Bay Area. However, some parts of Georgia is catching up on things San Francisco would consider outdated years ago.

It leads me to think that there will be a huge technological stratification between the rich countries and the poor countries. There is already a huge stratification on health care and with human rights among various countries. If the U.S does not take the time to think and invest in the other countries, a huge polarization of technological skills will take place. From an ethical and business perspective, it just cannot be good for entire populations and markets to be completely left behind.

Therefore I take pride and joy that I’m contributing to the human capacity of my fellow community members. Even though it sounds silly to Americans that I’m literally teaching someone how to use e-mail, I’m contributing to increasing the technological skills of others. I’m trying to ensure that at least 7 middle-aged women are not left behind on our technological wave of our era. Change is small. But done right, we could contribute to increase the skills and confidence of others. Even though they sometimes they exhibit stubbornness and unwillingness to do so.

8 years ago

Google vs. Facebook: Teaching Georgians that Google is ...

by Rawan / Her

A couple of weeks ago, I sat in on a staff meeting. It was all in Georgian of course. Instead of sitting there like a complete fool, I busted out my smart phone (yes, you can have those in the Peace Corps). I opened up Google Translate and translated words on the printed agenda that I could not understand. I puzzled things together and figured out what they were discussing. Somewhere on the agenda, I saw that “Google Calendar” was a discussion point. I assumed that this was in relevance to me. About a month or two ago, I taught my organization how to use Google Calendar. And it was a hit! We use it all the time and transparency and productivity has increased seamlessly. It was a good sign that my activities started permeating the organization’s agenda and objectives. Teaching my organization how Google can benefit business was beginning to take off.

To that note, they wanted me to me to conduct a training on how to use Facebook for the newly hired Community Workers. We hired 7 of them to essentially check-in on the World Vision Sponsored Children in the communities. Like any other organization and company, a team needs to collaborate and access the same documents. Want to take a guess on which platform was first suggested they would like to do the business collaboration on? Hint: I just mentioned it. Facebook.

Even though I’m not a fan of using Facebook for business purposes, we conducted a Facebook skills pre-test. I wanted to see how well the Community Workers know Facebook in the first place. When I got the answers back, I wasn’t not sure whether or not to be surprised. Most said that they know how to create lists, shared photo albums, events and the like. Yet, most also said that they do not have an e-mail address. Normally, I take people’s word when they answers questions about themselves on a simple test. However, you need an e-mail address to access Facebook. You cannot open an account if you don’t have an e-mail address. Therefore, how does someone not have an e-mail address and yet know how to conduct all these savvy things on Facebook? My conclusion is that they don’t. They probably misunderstood the question or misinterpreted it for something else.

My colleague also gave me some cultural insight when I was trying to make sense of the data. Apparently, many adults have their children create and open accounts for their parents. Therefore, the parents are probably completely unaware that their children created an e-mail account for their parents in order to access Facebook. Thus, the parent is not in the know that there is an e-mail address attached to their name in cyber-space.

So I dug a bit deeper into the activities that World Vision wants them to do on Facebook. I asked the following: how many pictures are they posting? Who is the intended audience of the photographs? Do they need to edit and send files? Sure enough, the answers told me that Facebook is not the right platform. Thus, I turned to show one of my colleagues the wonders of Google Drive and how compatible it is with e-mail. At first he was not aware that Google had more capabilities than the Calendar and Gmail. Giving a quick tour, he agreed that the G Drive was a much better internet platform for our business needs.

As I started researching topics to include in my training, I reached a fork in the road. The problem was that the G Suite is not translated into Georgian. Facebook is ahead of the game and has its content available in Georgian. How am I supposed to teach people to use a platform in which they cannot read its content? G suite does have Russian, which was a glimmer of hope. (Historical context: most older Georgians know Russian because it was required for them to learn the language when they were occupied by the former Soviet Union. Read more about that here). However, they do not use their Russian skills frequently and they are somewhat rusty. Thus, do I give them the right tools in a language they are not fluent in? Or do I train them on the less effective platform in a language they are fluent in?

This thing kept me up at night thinking. These questions would have NEVER happened to me in the United States. The content on the Internet is overwhelming written in English! Over 50% of the content on the web is in English and all the other languages don’t even come close to that percentage (if you want to see stats, read here). If you don’t speak, write, or read English, you are suddenly might find yourself excluded from consuming or sharing information. You speak a common language, there are things out there for you. But Georgian is not a common language. Heck, most my friends and family back home ask me if Georgia even has their own language.

Thus, I mentioned these concerns and thoughts to my colleague this morning. We both agreed that G Suite was the best option. The buttons on Gmail and G Drive are not complex. They will understand the basic words and format of the platform. I’m also assuming that Google will eventually translate things to Georgian. The community workers will be ahead of the game and know some Google skills before other people. May then they can train their friends and family on Google since they would have used it before.

Coming to this realization, I thought I’d share my conclusion: English speakers are privileged when it comes to the internet. This is privilege plain and simple. If you are reading this blog post right now, then you have a privilege that most of the world does not have. I don’t mean that in the sense that my blog is so fancy that you are lucky to read this. No, you are privileged because you can access and understand most of content on the World Wide Web. You have privilege because you can access internet in the first place.

It is moments like these that remind me why I love the Peace Corps. It opens your eyes to truly how privileged we are back home. We become more grateful and more kind human beings when we finish our service. But we also have a great opportunity (and responsibility I might add) to share the knowledge we have gained from said privilege and teach others. I am equipped with tools to transfer my “basic” internet skills to empower others to access a platform on knowledge.

8 years ago

Fall Season in Georgia: aka my Californian Winter

by Rawan / Her

Coming from the great state of California, I’ve gotten accustomed to not having a “real winter.” Of course, real winter exists in Tahoe or Big Bear, but I’m not from there. I’m from a city not too away from Los Angeles. So the middle of October in Georgia feels like my Californian winter: 50-something Fahrenheit degree weather with a chance of rain and wind.

Combine the lack of winter training with low blood circulation and you get me sitting in my bedroom under the covers at 4:00 p.m. wearing fluffy socks, a thermal shirt, a sweater, and two pairs of PJ bottoms. Seriously, I’m not over-exaggerating, my finger nails are slightly blue/purple-ish from being cold. The best part is that this is only FALL/AUTUMN in Georgia!

Sweater Weather, Fall in Georgia — Always wearing a sweater during the fall in Georgia!

Silver lining is that at least I don’t feel silly in my mismatched, warm, layered clothing. My host parents are also layering and wearing their jackets indoors. My host dad wore a scarf while eating dinner the other day. While making lunch, my host mom wore her fluffy, insulated boots yesterday. To answer your question, no they weren’t going somewhere or just came back from running an errand. We dress prepped for the outdoors even if we are remaining indoors.

This is because Georgia has no central heating system in their schools, offices, or homes. The buildings are also not insulated. So if it is cold outside, it is cold inside. If it is hot outside, it also hot inside. The only difference is that you aren’t going to feel the wind or the rain indoors. So at least that rainy cloud won’t be following you once you step into the front door.

Fall in Georgia, Trees in Georgia — At my site, leaves are turning brown…beautiful!

Even though I already started layering indoors, it has not gotten bad yet. I’m not sleeping in my sleeping bag yet. I’m not shivering when I’m momentarily changing clothes. I’m also not wearing multiple layers of fluffy socks (the real sign of winter for me).

However, I do have a feeling that I’m going to embody everything listed on this Odyssey article come winter.

8 years ago

My Peace Corps’ Sense of Style

by Rawan / Her

Our entire wardrobe is smaller than what I’m assuming Kim Kardashian would pack as carry-on for vacation. Personally, I blame the airline industry. That’s right, I’m poking my finger (or should I say raising a finger) to the 50 pound, 2 bag limit policy for international flights. The shoes, coats, and personal items alone take half the packing space. I’ll put it another way, I had one suitcase that encompassed all my clothes for the next two years for all four seasons. That, my friend, averages to about one week’s worth of clothing per season.

Peace Corps Georgia Outfits — Me at the end of each season

By the end of the season, I want to take my clothes to a fire pit and burn them because I’m so sick of them. I’ve worn each item of clothing once every week or two. I also got to know everybody’s outfits around me by the end of the second week. In America, you wouldn’t be caught dead wearing the same thing twice in a row. Your snotty coworker might just joke out loud that you got drunk last night, passed out by a dumpster, and went to work the next day without showering. In Georgia, it is totally acceptable repeating the same outfits. *Gasp!* Perfectly normal looking fresh in yesterday’s clothing.

I spend a lot less time staring into my closest debating my outfits than I did back home. I’m not not worried about mixing things up or keeping up with the latest trends. Life is a lot easier in the fashion department…..until the food poisoning episodes started happening.

How are these two related? Good question. Each food poisoning episode lasted a few days. I had no appetite and my body rejected all foods (except boiled potatoes) for nearly 5 days! Today is my first day back to normal from my second food poisoning in Georgia. My first one was merely six weeks ago with the exact same symptoms. I probably ate less in those five days than one person would during a Thanksgiving meal. Naturally, I lost weight.

Keep in mind, I’ve been losing weight since I arrived in country. All the walking and no driving will do that to you. My husband lost nearly 30 pounds. I’ve had friends who lost over 20 pounds each. I, on the other hand, actually have no clue how much I lost. Now, I didn’t have 20 pounds to lose. I’m average weight for a short person. So even a mere 5 pound weight loss looks drastic on me. But I do know this: half my clothes don’t fit me. I bought so many new Fall and Winter clothes specifically for Georgia. And now, I only got two shirts that fit me. I’ll repeat- TWO! So I have no choice but to mismatch the clothes that do still fit me and layer them.

Or, I can simply wear the same two fall shirts over and over again. I’m going with the former option. Walking around the street wearing things that do not go to together is my jam.

8 years ago

Where is the Cow?

by Rawan / Her

My favorite line that I heard yesterday was, “სად არის ძროხა?! (saad arees zrokha)” Which means “Where is the cow?!” The woman who asked me this was genuinely perplexed. Another woman echoed behind her, “და ღორები?! (da ghorebee?!)” The other woman was equally confused as to when I would take care of the cows and pigs during my day. These two simple questions truly highlight the differences between the lives women lead in American cities and Georgian villages.

Yesterday, I conducted one of the Participatory Analysis for Community Action (PACA) tools, called the Daily Activities Calendar, with two members of my organization. What are PACA tools, you ask? In simple terms, this is one of the ways we actually accomplish “being one with the community.” We get to learn how the community functions and see how their life is set-up so that we can work alongside with them in a more efficient way. The Daily Activities Calendar is a simple tool that is highly effective. Community participants are separated based on gender and they write down a typical day for the average woman/man in their community by hour/duration and by activity. It provides valuable insight on the different labor constraints that men and women have. It can raise awareness on the different contributions that each gender provides in the household.

Since it is still my first three months at my site, Peace Corps highly encourages conducting these assessments so that I can understand the community’s environment in which I’ll be serving in. Even though I live in a city, my organization conducts its activities in the surrounding villages. So along with my colleagues, we went to one of the beautiful villages we work in to conduct the Daily Activities Calendar PACA tool.

Persati Public School #1, where we held the Daily Activities PACA tool assessment

To increase understanding of the activity, I thought it would be best if I showed the 5 women and 5 men teachers in the room what a typical day is for a professional women working in a corporate environment in America. In essence, my previous life was summarized as such with the respective time blocks: wake up, take shower, eat breakfast, drive to work, go to work, eat lunch, make dinner, eat dinner, workout, write work e-mails and watch TV, then go to bed.

The second I was done showing them my old life’s daily activities, the infamous question was asked of “Where is the cow?!” It is because life in the village requires that the second you wake up, the women go and feed the cows and pigs before they even feed themselves. It requires tending to the chickens even when they are not in the mood for it. In American cities, if I was not in the mood to cook chicken, I can simply go to the closest grocery store chain and buy myself a warm rotisserie chicken for less than $10. You simply can’t do that here. If you live in a city in Georgia, you can be lucky enough to buy a ready-plucked chicken at the closest bazaar. In the village, simply go to your garden and you can pick which chicken you want to devour later.

So I stood there and tried to explain that they do not have to write down their activities of what life would be like in the city. I calmly told them that this just an example and they are to be authentic in explaining their lives in the village. For a second, I thought I just derailed the entire focus of the activity. Instead, I used this as an opportunity to show why this activity is important because it highlights the differences and brings awareness to what are lives actually are like. It brings forth the knowledge to effectively plan trainings and activities that would be effective in the life of the community.

This is a Daily Activities Calendar that the male teachers completed as a group

8 years ago

Not-a-Mango

by Rawan / Her

“I promise you that it is not a mango. I know what mangoes look like, I have eaten them many, many times and that is not a mango!” I was trying to convince my team that mystery fruit in the kitchen is in fact not a mango. At first, I thought a weird, small potato. It was the size of small garden potato, green-ish/yellow-ish in color once ripe. This particular one had starting bruising. It wasn’t until I touched it that I realized it had the same texture of a fruit’s skin and not of that of a potato.

My colleagues had originally believed it was in fact a mango, even though they have never seen a mango before. It has some of the same coloring, it was soft and gooey on the inside, so I could see their logic in their argument. The skin did almost feel mango-ish. I continued to proclaim, “You guys, I swear to you that is not mango.” We all started laughing, possibly because no one on the history of the earth proclaimed with such drama and passion about this topic. Then, someone suggested that it might have been an avocado. “Oh my gosh, no, it is not a mango and it is not an avocado. First of all, mangoes are 3 times its size and secondly, avocados are green on the inside and not a pale orange like this fruit.” One of my colleagues interjected that they were told it was possibly a mango. “Well, whoever told you that is very wrong. Mangoes do not have a bunch of big black seeds in the middle of the fruit,” I’m half laughing and half smiling as I’m saying this, but nonetheless, I was confident. Finally, they believe me, “Okay, Rawan, we believe you. You know more about mangoes than we do since we have not eaten one before.”

The next day, I asked one of my colleagues who brought the fruit to the office where she got it from. Apparently, her husband’s uncle (who happens to be her neighbor as well) had given them a bunch of this fruit. Apparently, he has had the tree in his yard for a while and has no idea where the tree came from. He did not plant it and yet each year the tree bears fruit. Each year that passes, he and everyone he has talked to have no idea what the heck it is. Unofficially, I was on a mission to find out. I took pictures. I ate the fruit. Then I took more pictures.

Top Left: The tree of mystery fruit. Top Right: peeled and ripe. Bottom Left: whole, unpeeled, and ripe. Bottom Right: Unripe, top is broken in half showing one of the seeds, bottom is whole and unripe

I showed my host family the pictures of the fruit, maybe they know right?! Well, yes and no. Yes, they knew exactly what I was talking about because my host and brother lead me to our yard. Low and behold, we have the same exact tree! There it was bearing the mystery fruit. Our fruit however was no ripe yet. And take another wild guess? My host mom has the same story as my colleague’s neighbor/uncle. She too has no idea where the tree came from and also doesn’t know anybody that knows what it is. Do I even need to say that she too thought it was a mango? Because she also suggested to me it could be a mango or an avocado.

The next day at work, I told them that even my host family has the tree in which we laughed about it. Two families have this mystery, non-Georgian native fruit growing in their yard each summer/fall having no clue what the heck it is. But at least we all know it is not a mango or an avocado.

If you have any guess to what it is, tell me….pretty please!

*Please note that a few days later with the help of my fellow volunteers, this fruit has been identified as a Paw-Paw

8 years ago

Watermelons Go Bye-Bye

by Rawan / Her

Watermelon season is almost over. Today is the first day of September, which means slowly but surely watermelons are going “bye-bye.” Fall is approaching as the end of summer is just around the corner.

You see, food is actually dedicated by seasons here. Georgia is not like California. I can’t go to the grocery store and buy the departing watermelon in the middle of December no matter how much I cry and whine. It is gone. Tough Luck. Gotta wait until next summer.

But that is okay, I am officially sick of watermelon because that is one of the unintended consequence of seasonal foods. You end up eating it all the time. You end up seeing it in your dinning room table, mocking you to eat it because “the limited time offer” is almost over. My host mom kindly offered me watermelon as dessert yesterday. I stared it with indifference. My host mom took a slice and enjoyed it very much. Spitting out the black seeds was too much of an effort for me, so I just didn’t eat it. Come back to me next month and ask me, I may regret not eating it.

I know I will be sad about one thing though for sure: the availability of fruit. I have been forewarned by other Peace Corps volunteers that “winter is coming” (there is your Game of Thrones tribute for the day). I’m serious though, because winter might as well be nicknamed “the season of potatoes.” I already eat a lot of potatoes. In fact, that was my dinner two nights ago: fried potatoes with a bit of onions. Yet winter has a lot of potatoes and no pears, figs, watermelons or a lot of fruit for that matter. I should rephrase, there will not be a lot of fresh fruit.

Georgians are smart because they take the fresh fruit they have on hand now and start making “compote” out of it (whole fruit in juice) or they will make jam. Currently, my host mom is making a lot of fig jam with the figs from our yard. There is enough Leghvi Muraba (fig jam) to go around for the entire street. My coworker told me that she has been making compote for the past couple of days, few hours each night. The problem with compote and jam is that most of the nutritional value is gone because the fruit was boiled for hours. Also, don’t ask me on how much sugar is in compote and jam. The answer is that it is safest not to know.

Either way, Georgians are shocked when I tell them that Americans don’t make compote or jam. The only person I know in America who makes jam, is my cousin. I think she picked up it up as a hobby years ago once and I’m pretty sure that hobby died down now that she is a busy, young mother. It just isn’t a thing. Americans don’t have a room dedicated to store the jam and compote like Georgians do.

As far as I know, there is no watermelon compote or jam. Thank goodness, because it will give me a chance to miss it until next summer. Until then, I counting down for fall to start.

8 years ago

The Wild [Marshmallow] Goose Chase

by Rawan / Her

Justin is one of those easy going husbands until he asks for something minor, like, “Hey, since you will be going to Tbilisi, mind getting me some marshmallows?” Then, my life becomes consumed with his little, seemingly simple request. I was visiting another Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) in a city close to Tbilisi, which is about 4 hours away from my site. Since I was making the long trip, Justin wanted to take advantage of the situation since anything remotely American would be in Tbilisi.

Back in ‘Merica, the diversity of our candy ecosystem would put Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory to shame. For a tiny country like Georgia, the candy here is delicious, no doubt about it. But does it include everything an American heart desires from what PCVs are accustomed to? A big, fat, sugarless ‘no.’

So me and my fellow PCV friends kept Justin’s request in mind for the entire weekend. There were two of us visiting our local PCV friend. The other visiting PCV wanted to see if they had vanilla extract. My local friend’s site had a lot more grocery shops than our sites. So we thought it might be nice to check those stores out and possibly save me the scavenger hunt in Tbilisi. Marshmallows in store 1? No- but we did find Soy Sauce (good mental note). But the adventure really starts with Store 2.

Our local friend had originally calculated it would probably take a 10-minute walk from her house. The morning of our departure, the three of us headed with our luggage to Store 2. We literally walked in 98 degrees at noon to get these marshmallows. Was it a brisk ten minutes? No, it wasn’t. It was a sweaty 60-minute walk to the edge of town. My back was killing me because lugging around a laptop and shoes on my back takes its toll. But all is well, because there is a 1 percent chance this place will have marshmallows. I looked at every aisle, but I don’t need to tell you that there were no marshmallows. I can’t remember if my other visiting friend found her vanilla or not, but I do remember that we bought some spices so the trip wasn’t a complete waste.

Marshmallow-less, the three of us walked again in the hot heat to the bus stop to catch a mini-bus to Tbilisi. The walk took another 30 minutes, which is also longer than expected. So at this point, we are getting dehydrated from walking for an hour and half in the hot heat for stupid marshmallows. I called Justin to see if he really needs these marshmallows hoping he would say, “just kidding, you don’t need to buy them.” Instead, I get a polite response of “yes, I would really would like the marshmallows and would appreciate it.” So that means, I got to do another adventure for this American treat.

After lunch, the three of us headed our separate ways. Instead of heading back to my site hours away, I take yet another Marshutka (mini-bus) to Tbilisi Mall and go to Carrefour (a British grocery store that is similar to an American set-up). Forty-minutes later, I’m searching every aisle of a two-story grocery store (the only one in the country). In Georgian, I ask two different employees where the marshmallows are located. They both looked at me like I was the weirdest person and just walked way with confusion and fear. But, I didn’t give up because my husband wants marshmallows! I finally find several generic bags of Marshmallows tucked away on a top shelf collecting dust. I brush off the dust and ask the closest employee if these are the only kind of marshmallows. This third employee didn’t even know the bag I was holding up was for sale at her store. She thought I had it at home and was asking where I could find them at Carrefour and said that they don’t sell these bags. I didn’t even bother explaining that I found them at the store. I walked away and I asked a fourth employee- my favorite interaction by far. This employee looks at the bag and reads the word out loud, “MARSH-MALL-LOW….MARSH-MALL-LOW” because she didn’t think I knew how to read. I cracked a smile and took the bags away as the employee looked very pleased with herself. At this point, Justin is going to have to be okay with these two dusty generic British bags of marshmallows.

By the time I got back on my bus to go home it was 5:30 p.m., which meant I spent 2.5 hours just getting to the mall and back. An hour into the ride back home, it started raining. This is horrible news because aside from the extra traffic and accidents, the bus routes could just stop running. I got back to my site’s main bus stop around 9:40 p.m. and realized that the inter-city buses stopped their routes hours earlier because of the rain! I realized I was stranded in a middle of a storm and in the dark. I really didn’t want to walk the 30 minutes to get home. Instead of blaming the marshmallows for my fate, I found a gentle looking woman to ask her how would I get home. Only understanding 50% of what she was saying, I walked towards a cab with her. Thinking she was simply directing the cab driver for me, she ended up sitting next to me in the cab. I thought, maybe this is my first shared cab ride in Georgia? Turns out, this woman was my guardian angel that day. She dropped me home safely and wouldn’t let me pay for my share of the cab ride. After a long day, I loved that this stranger took kindness (and pity) on the lost and lonely American trying to get back home.

Opening my bedroom door, I handed Justin the marshmallows. He hugged me and said, “Thanks! I’m so glad we can now have s’mores for BUILD Camp!”
Confused, I replied, “Um, so you are telling me I spent HOURS looking for marshmallows so that we can give them AWAY?!”

8 years ago

I Made a Difference at a Peace Corps Camp!

by Rawan / Her

Peace Corps Camp, DREAM Camp — DREAM Camp participants and leaders

“You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug” is one of my favorite lyric lines in the song “Brave” by Sara Bareillas. Last weekend, I turned a stereotype used against me into a powerful change agent.

On Sunday afternoon of last week, I came back from DREAM Camp from a town on the Black Sea. The camp launched this year by Peace Corps and a local organization to promote tolerance and respect for diversity, ethnicity, and multiculturalism among Georgian youth. Since most Georgians (over 80%) are ethnically Georgian and practice the Georgian Orthodox sect of Christianity, diversity is not a topic that is openly and frequently discussed in the social and educational fabrics of society. So we set out on a mission to have open discussions with 30 teenagers regarding diversity and multiculturalism.

Each Peace Corps Volunteer led a session on a topic relating to diversity. I led a session on Identity with the help of a host country national translating my English into Georgian. The session was meant to connect race, ethnicity, and nationality to the meaning of personal identity. Considering how the media portrays my ethnic background as anything but the “majority” in the West, I used my story to ignite change. Now, Sara Bareillas might have sung those lyrics with a different audience, but I decided to get raw and vulnerable with the teenagers sitting in front of me. I felt that in order to make a difference I had to divulge into deep parts of my personal history of discrimination that I quite frankly never discuss openly. I’ll spare you the details, but I straight up told the teens the consequences of what happens when a society seeks out intolerance, exclusion, and intolerance of minorities in such a raw and personal way. Now, I was mostly providing some old anecdotes, but it can’t be more relevant for today considering our current world events.

I told them that it is important to recognize that your identity, self-perception, and self-confidence can be so deeply tied to society’s perception of you. So I ended my session on the note that it is important to seek out understanding from those who may be slightly different from you.

At the end of the session, I walked away not knowing what impact, if any, my session had on the teenagers.

080316_Rawan_Teplinski_15608551 — Here I am (left) delivering a session on identity at DREAM Camp. One of the campers (right) was sharing her identity circles.

We had scheduled a Karaoke and dance party after dinner for our campers. While signing and dancing along to “Hit Me Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears, one of the teenagers came up to me. Now, I’ve recognized this kid before, but she was one of the quite ones who participated here and there. She admitted to me that she loved my session and it was thus far her favorite. She said that my story left a great impression and I had made an impact on the way she viewed diversity and identity. She said she was really grateful and glad I was able to present and then proceeded to give me a big, fat hug. I appreciated the genuine embrace and told her thank you for feeling comfortable to share her thoughts with me.

And this my friends, is the perfect example of an interaction of what I hoped as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Then, I walked away hoping that this girl will shine a light and spread some love and joy into her community.

If you wanted to check out more information about DREAM Camp, feel free to visit our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dreamcampgeorgia/

Here is a video of DREAM Camp on YouTube:

8 years ago

The Mosquito Whisperer

by Rawan / Her

I’m officially a self-proclaimed Mosquito Whisperer. Now, most self-proclaimed something or another whisperer actually want to be that whisperer. I, however, would like to denounce my title….nay, my crown, to whoever wants it.

Everyday, I count my mosquito bites. A sad ritual indeed because it really serves no purpose besides getting me more frustrated. I get frustrated because I seem to be alone in this en-devour. No one in my host family or at work has any bites to complain about. If they do, there are like a couple here and there (not worthy enough to join my self pity party). At any given moment, I have about 15 bites or more on my body. My right leg at the moment has 8. I also feel like I have moved beyond the summer look of mosquito bites into some sort of unidentified skin condition in which I develop red spots all over my skin (my face, thankfully, is not disfigured).

With each bite, I day-dream on how I received said bite. Did I see this blood sucking predator? No. Could I avoid this wing-creature monster? No. I’ve tried and failed. Seriously, can someone answer me how and why I get these bites?! Google did a somewhat reasonable job. It can provide the scientific step-by-step of the process of how a mosquito does its bidding. The “why” part of the question is left up to me.

Thus, here is my running theory how I became nominated by the mosquitoes as their whisperer. Humor me as my theories are somewhere between the realm of reality and pure myth. Okay, pure myth, but hear me out.

The mosquitoes hold a staff meeting every night at some God-forsaken hour. The leader of the pact goes, “now, remember followers, we must provide a fresh blood source for our sacrifice.” A good-for-nothing mosquito beckons, “What about Rawan? She is not Georgian. She has a new sort of blood we have not had before.” Another cries, “Yes, she will do. She does not break our treaty of not bothering anyone at [my home and work address are said here].” Another annoying mosquito agrees, “How about we make our lives easier and just go after her each and every day?” And then they all cry the evil laugh we hear in Disney movies.

And of course, they have invisibility powers. They borrow Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak wherever they go. I say this because I never see these suckers! I have no idea I have been bitten until I start itching and realize that it is in fact a bite. Naturally, I’m paranoid of scratching at this point because I could just make that bite I’m unaware of worse.

Call my crazy, I know this theory of mine cannot possibly be true. But really, it is the only one that gives me comfort. And please hold your old-wife tales to yourself. I have heard them all and here is my response: I do not eat bananas. I do eat garlic. I do not have a lot of sugar. Rubbing alcohol does nothing for the itching (but does reduce the redness). Applying heat or cold is nothing but a placebo. I have tried everything suggested on the Internet that I could possibly do here in Georgia.

But there is really one thing I have not tried: embracing my new identity as the Mosquito Whisperer.

Now excuse me as I go cry in the corner in fetal position embracing my new reality. But hey, at least Georgia does not have the Zika virus or Malaria, so thank God for that!

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